So I did end up watching the whole Oscar gala last night. Consequently, today has been a long day with little sleep for me since taking an afternoon nap is apparently more difficult to accomplish than I expected. So now I've used up all my strength and am ready to fall asleep.
In any case, I am happy I watched the Oscars this year. The Academy's attempt to make the gala "young and hip" this year was blatantly obvious and even commented on by the hosts. Anne Hathaway, 28, is the youngest person ever to host the Oscars. She shared the stage with another young star, 32-year-old James Franco. The two first-timers did a passable job. Franco was very calm and seemed even a bit stiff at times, but Hathaway countered that with a charming perkyness and unguestionable enthusiasm.
The winners (in categories on which I had some background knowledge of) were not surprising. Sure, the races in some of the categories apparently were quite close this year, especially in the cases of Best Director and Best Picture. This time The King's Speech and Tom Hooper came out on top instead of The Social Network and David Fincher.
The King's Speech was overall the biggest winner of the night by taking home 4 Oscars, all of them from major categories (Picture, Director, Original Screenplay [David Seidler] and Leading Actor [Colin Firth]). Christopher Nolan's Inception also received 4 Oscars, all of them in more technical categories (Cinematography [Wally Pfister], Visual Effects, Sound Mixing and Sound Editing). Both Supporting Actor and Actress awards went to The Fighter (Christian Bale and Melissa Leo) and just as most were expecting, the very pregnant Natalie Portman got the golden man for her remarkable performance in Black Swan. The winner of Best Adapted Screenplay this year was Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network.
Some of the best parts of the show were the nicely excecuted opening video, Kirk Douglas's introduction of the Best Supporting Actress nominees and consequent yet delayed announcement of the winner, as well as the acceptance speeches of both Melissa Leo and Colin Firth. Though this year's gala is not the best I've seen, it did have some aspects that will keep last night's show in my mind for a while. After all, there is a certain magic to hearing both swearing and Finnish from the mouths of fresh Oscar winners...
